My first thought is that we will never have another Stanley Cup Final against Detroit, and to be honest that makes me a little sad. (On the positive side, that should save a couple of my hairs from going gray early, too.)

I think the overall division structure and split of teams is pretty good. I personally don't worry too much about 8 teams in the east vs 7 in the west, it just doesn't get to me (but I understand those who do have that concern). At the same time I raged pretty hard against the current conference structure back when it was new, and now I'm finally used to it and feel some trepidation going back to the 4 divisions. Even if it's not the official name for each division, I hope they could each have the semi-unofficial old names as nicknames.

As for the playoffs, I just can't pick a side. I play out a bunch of scenarios in my head and I can't really decide if I like it or not. I start to wonder if 2 seeds getting automatic bids, or even 1 (so very similar to now) wouldn't be better. I really can't decide if I like conference or divisional playoffs better -- and forced to choose right now I'd probably say conference.

The OCD in me doesn't really like the unbalanced number of games within some of the intra- matchups, but in the long run that doesn't make a lick of difference.

Question, apart from the PR, do the rival matchups actually mean anything?

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Edit: If my figuring is right (and I think it is), and the playoffs were held today under the new structure, Detroit as a 5 seed in the Central would bump out the Rangers (4th in Atlantic) and play against the Pens in the first round. There's something cosmic in that, no doubt.

I'd still throw the three NY teams to the NE and take Detroit and Florida to make the Atlantic division but this works if the plan is to have all the teams play in single timezones. And when I was in Utah I seem to recall most TV in mountain time goes off the central time zone anyways meaning prime-time started at 7pm. Of course that was 20 years ago...

Looking how they will schedule this, the Florida teams aren't really going to be going north much more than they would have anyways going to NY.

Right now they will fly to all teams in their division twice and one team three times. But they will also still be going to NY and Pittsburgh. those flights are 2 hours. Montreal and Ottawa are 3 hours. almost half of the time on the planes will be taxing, take off and landing.

And they are still closer to Montreal and Ottawa at three hours than Dallas is to Winnipeg and Minneapolis or LA is to Alberta. Not a big deal at all.

Besides, the Dolphins play in the AFC East with northeast teams

Last edited by DelPen on Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Patrick = 6, all other had 5. 67% chance vs 80% chance. Patrick Division was getting screwed since 1982 and before that it was the Norris. Actually, historically the Pens seem to be in divisions with less chances to make the playoffs than other teams.

"With this change, it brings some rationality in terms of our schedule and our divisional opponents. I mean, people don't realize this, but Winnipeg is closer to Dallas than Phoenix geographically. So our travel schedule has certainly improved overall with this realignment. The Dallas Stars are very happy," said Dallas Stars President and CEO Jim Lites (see http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/90521 ... ealignment).

Hmm. Although I understand Texas takes a day to drive across, I was suspicious of Mr. Lites's geography. Sure enough (using Google Earth):

Dallas to Phoenix: about 900 milesDallas to Winnipeg: about 1200 miles

So unless he meant that Winnipeg-to-Dallas is a shorter trip than Winnipeg-to-Phoenix, which doesn't make sense in context, his facts or his math are wrong.

Perhaps he's just right for crafting budget proposals for either of the parties in U.S. Congress....

Yes, that is a negative. There is plenty of "BUTTMAN LOVES MARIO AND THE PENS HERP DERP" to begin with, so they may elect to avoid that. But, to that I say, doing things because of what idiots want or don't want is no way to run the NHL (ignoring the past 30 years for the moment).

slappybrown wrote:Yes, that is a negative. There is plenty of "BUTTMAN LOVES MARIO AND THE PENS HERP DERP" to begin with, so they may elect to avoid that. But, to that I say, doing things because of what idiots want or don't want is no way to run the NHL (ignoring the past 30 years for the moment).

Dan H wrote:Here's a peripherally relevant bit of trivia that I noticed:

"With this change, it brings some rationality in terms of our schedule and our divisional opponents. I mean, people don't realize this, but Winnipeg is closer to Dallas than Phoenix geographically. So our travel schedule has certainly improved overall with this realignment. The Dallas Stars are very happy," said Dallas Stars President and CEO Jim Lites (see http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/90521 ... ealignment).

Hmm. Although I understand Texas takes a day to drive across, I was suspicious of Mr. Lites's geography. Sure enough (using Google Earth):

Dallas to Phoenix: about 900 milesDallas to Winnipeg: about 1200 miles

So unless he meant that Winnipeg-to-Dallas is a shorter trip than Winnipeg-to-Phoenix, which doesn't make sense in context, his facts or his math are wrong.

Perhaps he's just right for crafting budget proposals for either of the parties in U.S. Congress....

Not sure what he's thinking, but it takes 2:52 to get to Winnipeg and 2:16 to get to Phoenix.

I could be wrong, but with trying to make hockey relevant to a larger audience, I don't see them going with the traditional division names of people that have been dead since long before most of us have been alive.

Last edited by shafnutz05 on Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.